Friday at Braves Pitching Camp (Camp Roger)

Your friendly neighborhood blogger, gondeee, was lucky enough to get a press pass to today's session of Camp Roger. It was a terrific experience with everyone being very relaxed and in a good mood. I'll recap the morning in bullet point fashion, and then I'll put a post up later with tons of photographs:

• The pitchers on hand were Tim Hudson, Peter Moylan, Kris Medlen, Eric O'Flaherty, Michael Dunn, Chris Resop, Jeff Lyman, Jonny Venters, Stephen Marek, Ryen Reynoso, Brett Butts, and Lee Hyde.
• I had a nice chat with Lee Hyde, who went to Georgia Tech. I introduced myself and told him I went to UGA. He said it's rare to find a UGA fan who actually went there... ah, the typical razzing by Techies. We talked about his time in Arizona and how much he's looking forward to the season. He's also still pretty excited about Georgia Tech football.
  
• I probably spent the most time around the batting cages talking to Michael Dunn, our new lefty who came over in the Vazquez deal. He's an imposing guy with a bald head and mean looking goatee, but he's really cool and down to earth. He was also in the AFL where the Yankees guys were trying to get him to throw a split finger. He didn't want to because his arm kept hurting when he threw it, so he was pretty stoked when the trade happened knowing that the Braves wouldn't ask him to work on that again this year. He said he was working out with some friends when one yelled out that the news of him being traded came across the television -- that's how he found out he had been traded.
  
• More on Dunn; interestingly he thought that he was traded to Detroit earlier in the off-season, as he was apparently an early piece of the Granderson trade that was later removed. He said the Yankees told his agent early in the off-season that Dunn would likely be traded at some point in the next couple of months; sort of like a head's-up. 
• Even more on Dunn; he said that Mariano Rivera was very helpful for him in his time with the Yankees last season. Dunn said he's really looking forward to working with Billy Wagner, who is also a lefty.
• Jeff Lyman and Jonny Venters are pretty cool guys. On bouncing between the bullpen and the rotation, which Lyman said he did about five times last year, he said it didn't affect him, "pitching is pitching," he said. That's a good attitude to have, and proof that his flexibility pays off, and should continue to pay off in the future. Venters said his first bullpen didn't go well at all, and that needs a lot of work on his location. As much as we complain about some of these prospects' flaws, these guys know what they need to work on and they're trying their best to improve in those areas.
  
• I spent a good deal of time talking with Chris Resop, who is coming back from a year and a half in Japan. He had some very interesting things to say about his time in Japan, and I got had a long session with him on my digital voice recorder. I'll be putting together a story this weekend that will be posted early next week about the difficulties and differences he shared with me about Japanese baseball -- should be very interesting.
  
• I spoke with Tim Hudson a bit. He looks healthy and says he's healthy and ready to go, without any pain in his elbow. I asked him what he works on at Camp Roger and he said just location and building up arm strength, that he would add velocity later.
  
• Everyone was chatty during most folks bullpens (any side throwing session is usually called a "bullpen"), but when Hudson took the mound for his bullpen, everyone shut up and watched him intently. Kris Medlen even said in passing that he loves watching Huddy's bullpens.
  
• Braves Minor League Director Kurt Kemp was there watching several folks, and he said that Arodys Vizcaino is already at the team's academy in the Dominican Republic.
  
• Jordan Schafer was also there, taking some batting practice, initially off a tee and then from coach Brian Snitker. His swing looks great, and he looked ready to go.

I'll have pictures coming up later, as well as a recap of the Braves Caravan Q&A at the stadium with some interesting quotes from Frank Wren.